


Prettier than Fireflies

by aeruh



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Fluff, Gen, It’s All Just Fluff, Link and Paya have a bonding moment, There’s a fairy but they don’t have a name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeruh/pseuds/aeruh
Summary: After Link promises to stay by Paya’s side when the ancient heirloom goes missing, he realizes he doesn’t actually have any clue what to do. Thankfully an opportunity presents itself, and it’s small and glowing and has wings.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Prettier than Fireflies

**Author's Note:**

> I’m stuck in quarantine for another seven days, and I wanted to write something short and cute. So here you go: something short and cute!

“Paya is afraid that the thief may still be nearby,” Impa tells him. Her voice is serious and grave as always. “Would you please stay by her side today?”

Link doesn’t need to think twice. He was Princess Zelda’s appointed knight, after all—according to what everyone else has told him, at least, and the few memories he has. Paya is Impa’s granddaughter, and sort of like a princess in her own right. And she doesn’t hate him like Zelda did for a little while. Besides, it was only for a day. It would be _easy._

He puts his hands on his hips and nods with confidence. This is _nothing._ He can handle it. 

Sometimes Link is wrong. Like the time when he thought he was far away enough from the bomb, but he wasn’t, and almost blew himself up along with the silver Bokoblin chasing him. Or when he thought it would be a good idea to throw in a lizard with his curry and created something not even a Hinox would touch. This time isn’t as bad, because he _probably_ isn’t going to get himself blown to pieces or food poisoned, but it’s… a little awkward.

He’s not a man of many words, but he doesn’t mind someone else coming along to fill the space. He doesn’t mind someone quieter either; working alongside someone without the stress of holding up a conversation can be relaxing. Paya is quiet, but she’s also incredibly nervous, and Link wasn’t given much instruction besides “stay with her.” 

At the moment “staying with her” means sitting on the steps to the temple while Paya polishes the hardwood floor behind him. Link feels out of place, not helping, but when he offered a hand Paya blushed as dark as a hasty lizard and said that it was beneath him. 

_It really isn’t,_ Link thinks. He’d tried to say otherwise, remembering the time he had to pick tar out of his hair from the Bottomless Swamp. It took days before he gave up and cut chunks out with the Master Sword. (That last part is a secret, though.) 

But she refused to let him get a single word in. And at a loss for things to do, Link settles for sorting his inventory. How many apples does he have? Too many, probably, but Epona likes them and they keep for a long time. He has a lot of monster parts he wants to sell and they fetch a good price; probably enough for the diamond circlet he’s been eyeing forever. He’s got plenty of diamonds already so it shouldn’t be an issue…

Before he can start doing the math to figure out how many Lizalfos tails he can get away with selling, Link gets the prickly feeling of someone watching over his shoulder. 

“I-I’m sorry!” Paya scrambles backwards like a frantic spider. “I don’t mean to spy on you, Master Link, but my eyes caught on something on your Slate and I—”

The title makes him scrunch his nose up. “Just Link,” he says. “And I’m not mad. What were you looking at?”

Paya inches forward and avoids his eyes, but she reaches out a hand to point at one of the things on the screen of the device in his hand. 

“The fairies?”

She wrings the cleaning cloth in her hands. “I’ve seen them at the Fairy Fountain, sometimes. But I can never get close enough to see them really well—and you have _five_?”

Link spends a lot of time on his own, which means he doesn’t get many chances to socialize, but even he can see a chance for a conversation. A way to make things a little less awkward between them, maybe. 

“The secret is stealth. You gotta be slow and quiet to creep up on them. Do you want to see one?” And then he’s tapping on the fairy icon while Paya stumbles over her words behind him. 

Most of the time the fairies only make an appearance when he needs them in the middle of a fight. They shoot out of his slate and fly around him a few times when that happens, dropping sparkles onto his shoulders and the top of his head that take away most of the aches and cuts and bruises. When he summons them on his own, they sit in the palms of his cupped hands while he’s careful not to brush their wings. He heard from someone once that if you touch a butterfly’s wings it could hurt them and make them unable to fly. Butterflies aren’t faeries, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.

This is what happens now, too. The fairy stands in his hands, yawning because they’d been woken from a nap. Link is close enough to see the blue dress they’re wearing and watch them shake the sleep from their head and do one of those entire-body stretches, hands up high and standing on their toes. They look around for the injured person who needs help, but when no one appears, they look behind them to make eye contact with Link. 

_What are you doing?_ their expression says. 

“Sorry,” Link tells them. “I have a friend who wants to meet you.”

The fairy looks forward again. Paya is closer to him than she’s ever been before, but the distance doesn’t seem to register in her mind as she kneels. Her hands have come up to cover her mouth in surprise.

“They’re lovely,” Paya says. She’s too amazed to be nervous. 

The little blue fairy seems to have taken her compliment to heart. They flutter their wings, flattered, and rise up into the air to hover right in front of Paya’s face. Link smiles when she goes cross-eyed to follow their movement. They look her over very intently for a moment and then lean forward to place a tiny kiss on the tip of her nose. It makes Paya blush again like she did before. When the fairy sits up straight, there’s a little sparkle when contact has been made. 

A thank-you? A blessing? Link isn’t sure, but he knows it was a good thing. The fairy flies up to loop around them once, twice, showering them in glitter that looks like falling stars even though neither need healing. And then the fairy dives back into the Slate (that might have been forgotten on the hardwood) to nap until they’re needed whenever Link does something stupid again. He’s self-aware enough to know that probably won’t be too long.

Paya is still staring at the gold dusted on her white clothes when Link picks his Sheikah Slate back up. 

“They liked you, I think,” Link tells her. “Most people just mistake fairies for fireflies, but it probably insults them a little bit.”

“I’ve seen fireflies before. They—they’re Lasli’s favorite!” Paya shakes her head furiously. “I can tell the difference. Fairies are prettier.”

Her comment draws an unexpected laugh from him. It’s been a long time since someone was able to make him do that. 

“I’ll pass the message along,” Link promises. “Was there anything else you wanted to see?”

Hours later when the temple gatekeepers switch, Dorian finds Link and Paya sitting on the staircase side by side. Luminous stones, silent shrooms, blue nightshade, and silent princesses are scattered on the steps around them and fill the air with a soft, glowing blue. Link doesn’t notice they have an observer when he adds a star fragment to the collection and retells now he traveled halfway across Hyrule Field to get it, narrowly avoiding a guardian-induced demise. 

There’s still a few hours before Link’s job is done; he can focus on tracking down the stolen heirloom once Paya’s gone to bed. If he’s able to break through her nervous shell even just a little, then taking down a thief should be _nothing_ in comparison.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m slowly losing my mind because I can’t leave the house, so I’ve been playing a lot of Breath of the Wild. I love Papa to bits but I wish there were more interactions with her. I completed the Stolen Heirloom shrine quest and realized I could write one myself. 
> 
> (Also I ended up using like _all_ of my fire arrows that Yiga jerk)


End file.
